How many times have you laughed at the misfortune of others? Incalculable, you say? Okay, how about just the misfortune of your friends and family? Still incalculable? Wow. Based on the rest of this article, where harmless puns mean you might've had a stroke and not enjoying sarcasm practically gives you Alzheimer's, you're probably expecting us to call you a monster. Or at least imply you have some form of brain cancer. But no, shockingly, this is the normal one.
In 1961, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram convinced study participants that they were delivering a series of increasingly severe electrical shocks to test subjects. Whenever they pushed the pain button, many participants would respond with "nervous laughing fits" that "seemed entirely out of place, even bizarre." Did Milgram, in a sheer stroke of luck, manage to round up every supervillain in greater Connecticut to participate in his demented little experiment?
Pennsylvania State University
"Next push delivers a double shock, you say?"
Actually, it's the opposite. Milgram concluded that the giggling wasn't genuine glee at the very concept of hurting people, but decent folks unconsciously trying to convince themselves that everything was OK. V.S. Ramachandran theorized that laughter evolved in part as a signal to defuse threats. You don't laugh when the tiger charges at you -- you laugh when he trips over his own feet and somersaults into a pile of manure like the jungle's Biff Tannen. So it was with the program's participants, who laughed in an effort to convince themselves and those around them that everything was okay, even though it clearly wasn't.
Pennsylvania State University
"You're ... singing, right? Yeah, you're ... singing. Such a lovely voice you've got ... when you ... sing ..."
Well, it's either that, or all people are inherently evil and your only recourse is to go full Walden. Maybe make friends with some bears or something. But that seems impractical. If you do figure out what a bear thinks is "cool," though, then drop us a line and we'll follow suit.
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Check out Robert Evans' A Brief History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization, a celebration of the brave, drunken pioneers who built our civilization one seemingly bad decision at a time.


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